Democrats Sue Georgia Over Hand-Count Rule

Democrats are suing over a new rule that says ballots need to be hand-counted, along with the machine counting.

Democrats Sue Over Georgia Requirement That Ballots Be Counted by Hand pic.twitter.com/fY2Xju6pcY

— LancesEpicQuest (@Stylzbeats) September 30, 2024

The Democratic Party sued Monday to stop a new Georgia election rule that would require poll workers to count the number of ballots after polls close, a legal challenge Democrats said aims “to prevent election night chaos.” #gapol https://t.co/QaXQRIgAAT

— Mark Niesse (@markniesse) September 30, 2024

The Hill reports:

Democrats filed a lawsuit Monday looking to block a controversial rule requiring ballots to be hand-counted by local precincts in Georgia, arguing it violated Georgia law and called it “improper.”

A group of Democrats, including the Democratic National Committee and Georgia Democratic Party, are bringing a lawsuit against the Georgia State Election Board after the board passed a new rule earlier this month ordering for ballots to be hand-counted in addition to their routine machine tabulation.

The lawsuit, which is backed by the Harris campaign, argues that the new rule “adds an additional hurdle to Georgia’s established process for collecting and tabulating ballots,” as poll workers will need to make sure that a machine tabulation of Election Day ballots matches a hand count done by poll workers. The lawsuit argues that if both numbers do not match, the rule makes it unclear how to actually resolve the discrepancy between the two.

Democrats also argue that the hand-count rule is unlawful, saying in their lawsuit that “it improperly adds a new requirement to the Election Code beyond what the General Assembly contemplated and conflicts with the statutes the General Assembly did enact — in particular, by shifting part of the responsibility to oversee the tabulation of ballots from the county board to workers at individual precincts,” and they argue the board “exceeded its rulemaking authority,” among other criticisms.

Zero Hedge adds:

Members of the election board did not respond to requests for comment on the legal action by publication time.

Democrats are asking the court to invalidate the rule and permanently block it.

The rule, approved by a 3–2 vote, requires the hand count to be done before the election is certified.

“I can guarantee you, as a voter, I would rather wait another hour to ensure that the count is accurate than to get a count, or to get a number, within that hour, and then to find out at the close of an election, after certification has already taken place, that we have people suing because the count was not accurate,” Janelle King, one of the members who voted for the rule, said before the board voted on it.

Sara Tindall Ghazal, one of the members who voted against the rule, cited the number of election officials who said it should not be implemented. The Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials is among the groups that expressed opposition.

Here’s CBS reporting on it.

Notice how many times he repeats the line “Tired poll workers that are exhausted.”

Almost like he’s trying to get us to feel bad about it.

Are are we supposed to say, “Oh, you’re right. Lets just use the machines to count them. It’s either that or 98 year old grannies counting by hand.”

As if no one else works the polls.